3E Stealth

[deaddmwalking]

Regarding narrative details - sometimes it matters.

The PCs are walking along a forest trail. The trees grow densely and the track is narrow. The only sky they can see is a narrow ribbon of blue high over their head. An encounter table indicates a green dragon.

It strafes the party. The players ask how such a large creature attacked them without revealing itself.

The GM feels that seeing the dragon was unreasonable given the conditions. The players then ask how the dragon noticed them... Maybe it is reasonable that the dragon would notice trail dust or something, but it can be a table argument if players and the DM disagree.

Both sides would benefit from having clear rules about whether each side could have noticed the other and when.

[ACOS]

That's a fair point. I would say that that is certainly a type of situation in which the distance modifiers a completely relevant. Also, think about the scenario from the perspective of the respective parties:
PCs: they're trying to negotiate the immediate terrain. A dense forest with but a game trail to guide them, the PCs are primarily concerned with staying on course, trying not to get their equipment caught up in the undergrowth, not tripping on roots, falling in to sink holes, etc.; and giving the outer area only cursory attention. The things that are blocking your vision are right there in front of you.
Dragon: gliding casually through the air, concentrating primarily on scanning the ground for noms. He's familiar with the area and the various game trail that tend to produce the most food (e.g., adventurers with shinies). From an elevated perspective, everything is more flattened out -- you're really just looking for the moving thing among the not-moving things within the same relative space.
From personal experience, I can tell you that the dragon is very much in the more advantageous position. It's easier to spot a thing from above than from below. It's easier to spot a thing if you are specifically concentrating on it than if only keeping a intermittent, passive, and distracted eye out.

[deaddmwalking]

From personal experience, I can tell you that the dragon is very much in the more advantageous position. It's easier to spot a thing from above than from below. It's easier to spot a thing if you are specifically concentrating on it than if only keeping a intermittent, passive, and distracted eye out.

Agreed.

But if the PCs are going to be in a DISADVANTAGEOUS position, it's worthwhile to have concrete rules around it. That way PCs could take steps to reduce their exposure. The game works best when the GM and the players can both tell that the rules are being followed (or if they're not, both parties agree that the houserule is superior). Even if you and I agree that the dragon has a major perceptual advantage, not everyone would agree. Once you have a disagreement about reality (even before you throw in magical senses), it's nice to be able to fall back on concrete rules.

[ACOS]

I agree that the rules as printed are sparse.
If you have people that can't agree on what "reality" would look like, I think that's a people problem, not a rule problem. But fair enough, if the rules are sufficiently detailed, the people problem can be subverted.
I'm just not sure how much page space can or should be dedicated to parsing all that out.
IDK, if stuck with rules at hand, maybe you just adjudicate a situation like that as "use the distance modifiers relative to the immediate terrain of the creature rolling the dice", or some shit like that.
Yes, it's ass; but it's something in the absence of something more concrete.

[edit]Unless you're okay with pulling a time-out to hash out what "reality" would actually look like.
If push comes to shove, .... at the end of the day, the GM still needs to be able to frame the scene. What's the point of the scene? What are the dramatic questions attempting to be asked? What purpose is this scene supposed to serve?
Better framing is always a valid solution. Which also involves asking "how might a player react to such-and-such presentation?".

[erik]

@range modifiers:
Aren't "distance modifiers" and "range increments" the same thing? Simply changing the scale and/or granularity doesn't change the concept.

It's changing it from a 1:1 scale which gets out of control almost immediately and is useful about never, to one that is based upon range increments that are combat relevant. And at greater distances useful for spotting stuff at range limits.

[ACOS]

@range modifiers:
Aren't "distance modifiers" and "range increments" the same thing? Simply changing the scale and/or granularity doesn't change the concept.

It's changing it from a 1:1 scale which gets out of control almost immediately and is useful about never, to one that is based upon range increments that are combat relevant. And at greater distances useful for spotting stuff at range limits.

well, scale ratio is just a manner of expression. the point of my observation was that "+/- based on distance" is what both "distance modifiers" and "range increments" do; the specific nomenclature (as expressed in the rules) seems to just signal context (combat abilities vs non-combat abilities, let's say). Ratio is just ratio.
[edit]I do certainly agree that there is plenty of space where 1:1 simply doesn't work for practical purposes. I've plenty of times started "engagements" where I've had to change the scale/ratio as the range narrowed. It gets a little wonky/complicated; but can be pulled off with enough finessing, as long as the players "get it".[/edit]
hmm, .... so, for what you seem to be talking about, maybe something like scaling increments? that is, maybe increments/modifiers proportional to the physical scope in question?
Could you maybe break things down in to "zones", and each "zone" has it's own set of modifiers, or some such nevermind, that's idiotically fidgety.

[MGuy]

Let's imagine a couple of scenarios. The first is "The Thief in the Museum."

The Thief in the Museum.
The concept is that there is that there is a thief and a guard. The thief is trying to get the treasure without getting caught by the guard. That's it. So let's think of the possible end points:

• Guard spots Thief before he gets to the treasure.
• Guard detects Thief's presence before he gets to the treasure. Perhaps he finds footprints or hears movement. Guard knows that there is a thief and raises the alarm, but does not necessarily know what the thief looks like or where they are.
• Guard detects Thief taking the treasure. Guard knows where the thief is, because he's at the treasure. The alarm is raised, but the thief has the treasure.
• Guard detects Thief (or the loss of the treasure) after the treasure is taken but before Thief has escaped the building.
• Guard spots Thief after the treasure has been taken. The chase begins, but the thief already has the treasure.

So that's five distinctly different states just for the Guard's attempt at perception. And keep in mind that the main action that Thief can take to avoid being detected during or after taking the treasure is to detect Guard and waiting until Guard is far enough away from the treasure that they have time to escape the building before Guard notices that the treasure is gone.

Needless to say, an opposed Stealth vs. Perception roll is not going to give you that level of granularity. But that level of granularity is actually a minimum for a stealth system to not be a pile of ass. Any less outputs than that and a stealth system really isn't fit for purpose.

-Username17

Initial Stealth Check to determine three thief's Stealth rating. If higher than the guard's the thief makes it to the treasure. If lower he does not. You have two tiers of failure. If failed by less than x thief is detected but not located which forces a reroll against the guard's now alerted perception rating. If failed by more than x thief is caught and chase or combat begins. If the thief fails by less than the threshold on the reroll then same thing.

After retrieving the treasure the thief has to cover his tracks, forcing another Stealth Check probably at a penalty to continue sneaking and cover tracks. Failure still has two tiers. Alerting the guard after he takes it but before he leaves or alerting them immediately so they can catch him in the treasure room. Success let's him get out before they know what happened but of course they find out as soon as they casually give it a look.

Minimum two rolls, max three. One failure can lead to total failure or make every roll afterward that much harder with the option to retreat if the player doesn't want to gamble. Unless this is a game that focuses on this sort of thing I really don't think anything more complex than a simple minigame like this should handle it. It runs quickly and can be frustrated by having perceptive sentries, sensors, and locked doors to expand things if you get to a section of the game where you 'are' doing the Oceans 11 thing.

[deaddmwalking]

Itierative probability is a bitch. If the rogue s 100% likely to succeed, there's no point in rolling and there is no drama. If the rogue is 80% likely to succeed on each check, he feels 'sneaky' - he usually succeeds, after all. But with three checks, he's only 50% likely to succeed.

Rolling a miss in combat works because the fight continues and it ends up just being a 'failure to make progress'. In stealth, a single failure ends the stealth mini-game and starts the combat music.

[Omegonthesane]

I had vague memories of a subsystem proposed for Asymmetric Threat where you'd enter a sneaky situation and become "on thin ice" and various actions you'd do to achieve the objective for which you were sneaking around would add tension in a relatively deterministic fashion until you finally broke the ice, so you'd probably know from the initial stealth roll how much you can get away with before you have to switch to the unsubtle approach.

But I don't think it was called "thin ice", the Google search in the site didn't bring up any CFH threads.

[MGuy]

Itierative probability is a bitch. If the rogue s 100% likely to succeed, there's no point in rolling and there is no drama. If the rogue is 80% likely to succeed on each check, he feels 'sneaky' - he usually succeeds, after all. But with three checks, he's only 50% likely to succeed.

Rolling a miss in combat works because the fight continues and it ends up just being a 'failure to make progress'. In stealth, a single failure ends the stealth mini-game and starts the combat music.

If a rogue has a 100% chance by design in the system then that's a thing you have to ask yourself if you want in the system and that's a different issue than the one I'm approaching.

In the little mini game I introduced above a failure at 80% increases the failure rate of the checks that come after it so likely if they are makong that many rolls the failure should be higher for 3 and that is the intent. People like to roll dice because they like to gamble. The failure state of no more stealth game is fine if that's not the main thing your game is about. Failing once then deciding if it's worth the increased risk would be part of what I'd want out of a simple side mini game.

[Username17]

The easiest way to design a game is to have Thief and Guard roll dice a bunch of times. This allows Thief and Guard to notice each other dynamically. Unfortunately, it makes it pretty much impossible for Thief to win because iterative probability is a bitch. And also it's a giant pain in the ass.
The easiest way to design a game for people to actually play is to have Thief (and Guard, for that matter) have a stealth "budget" that they become detected once they run out of. Thief might take actions to do "stealth gambits" to try to raise their stealth budget. Say, arranging distractions or hiding and waiting for Guard to move on. Gambits could come at a cost, perhaps the Distraction raises the overall suspicion level while buying more stealth budget for Thief, while the patient waiting costs time to buy more stealth budget.

Such a system sounds reasonable, and could be written. But obviously enough it hasn't been written. And porting it into 3e D&D is not a trivial exercise. All the numeric inputs are wrong, for example.

Now let's consider another event that your stealth system has to handle: The Forest Encounter.

The Forest Encounter

There is a patrol of six Orcs and a party of four Adventurers. Both are wandering through the forest. The Orcs in this case are on Team Orcus and the Adventurers are anti-Orcus. Neither group knows about the other. Here are the possible scenarios your system has to be able to output:

• Orcs identify the Adventurers before the Adventurers know they are there. The Orcs prepare an ambush.
• Adventurers identify the Orcs before the Orcs know they are there. The Adventurers prepare an ambush.
• Orcs identify the Adventurers, and the Adventurers know the Orcs are there but haven't identified them, so the Orcs are able to charge in, but the Adventurers aren't surprised.
• Adventurers identify the Orcs, and the Orcs know the Adventurers are there but haven't identified them. The Adventurers get to charge in, but the Orcs aren't surprised.
• Orcs and Adventurers are both aware of the other party but have not identified the other group and cautious probing is called for.
• Orcs and Adventurers are both unaware of the other party before running into each other, which means that combat music starts with various characters in various states of surprise.
• Orcs and Adventurers are unaware of each other and actually pass like ships in the night without a battle starting.

Now you might say that this can be done with opposed rolls. And yeah... it kind of could. The fact that you can know there's something over there without identifying it as an enemy specifically could be handled with a simple degrees of success model on an opposed roll. But that's a reasonably simple scenario and we're talking like 10 characters who are all making opposed rolls at each other. Doing that as a series of 1v1 rolls is straight up impossible (it would be 24 rolls per side per comparison - so roughly 96 rolls if both sides have the possibility of being stealthy and/or perceptive). Making a group stealth check for both teams and you're still looking at 12 rolls just to handle that simple setup. What if the Adventurers have familiars, cohorts, or other minions? What if there are a dozen Orcs? Or thirty five? And it still doesn't actually tell you whether the groups miss each other or smack into each other if everyone fails their perception check.

More damning of course is that having established that one side or the other or both are aware that combat is supposed to start, you still need to determine how far away these determinations are made. Encounter distance is absofucking crucial, and you aren't going to get that as the output of a pass/fail d20 die. Further, it's actually quite important how much one side or the other can do before giving their position away to the other if they have the advantage. Can the ambushing side move closer? Prepare attacks? Cast fucking spells? These are important pieces of information.

Again, you could do something with a stealth budget here. Where getting closer or doing various kinds of actions would eat up your stealth budget and when it was all gone the enemy knew you were there. But such a system doesn't look dick diddly like the 3e Stealth system. The 3e Stealth system can't answer even half of the basic questions you might have about the Forest Encounter.

-Username17

[MGuy]

So a heist and an ambush. What questions would one have to answer stealth wise for trailing someone and noticing and escaping from a person who is tailing them?

[deaddmwalking]

If you're tailing someone, it can be assumed that you're at least initially aware of the person you're tailing.

The person you're tailing might:
1) Be unaware that they're being followed and are generally being open with their movements
2) Be unaware that they're being followed, but are generally trying to lose any pursuit they may have (even though they are not aware of a specific follower)
3) Be aware that they're being followed but don't care (ie, don't try to shake the tail)
4) Be aware that they're being followed and are actively trying to shake the tail.
5) Be aware that they're being followed and seek to confront their pursuer.

From the person followings perspective, they don't want to be so close that they alert their quarry; they don't want to be so far that they lose their quarry.

In a 'perfect situation' the PCs would have multiple observers along the route so one could drop the tail before the quarry became suspicious while another picks it up. Scenarios like this are often portrayed in 'modern' movies and TV shows because radio communication allows effective coordination between individuals.

[ACOS]

If the rogue is 80% likely to succeed on each check, he feels 'sneaky' - he usually succeeds, after all. But with three checks, he's only 50% likely to succeed.

For a meaningful scene, this isn't a bad thing. Each stage ups the stakes (aka, "mounting tension").

Rolling a miss in combat works because the fight continues and it ends up just being a 'failure to make progress'. In stealth, a single failure ends the stealth mini-game and starts the combat music.

2 points:
1) Choices that can only change the status quo in a positive manner are half as meaningful as choices that can change the status quo in either direction. This can be fine for combat because it's simply an exercise in attrition. Stealth scenarios are a different type encounter.
2) MGuy already broke down how single-failure doesn't have to automatically start the combat music (though it certainly should heighten the danger music).
Otherwise, I completely echo MGuy's response(s).

Unfortunately, it makes it pretty much impossible for Thief to win because iterative probability is a bitch. And also it's a giant pain in the ass.

Iterative Probability also demands TPKs. If you add to that the idea that rolling lots of dice is a pain in the ass .... now we're back at square one of why bother with a RNG to begin with.
An actually true statement would be "it's impossible for Thief to win every time" (which is a feature), and "pointless die rolling is a pain".

The idea of a "stealth budget" is certainly interesting; I'd even say compelling. However, I'm skeptical as to whether or not it would be worth the effort for any game not literally named Cloak & Dagger. To be honest, I've seen plenty of creative roleplaying involving various types of distractions and hide-n-wait tactics, and none of them have required special mechanics to work. You simply don't need rules for fictional positioning - GMs who don't want to mess with that are equally as unlikely to care about any kind of fiddly new stealth mini-game, preferring instead to stay on the face-stab train.

The Forest Encounter
This has a lot of similarities to "Thief and Guard", RE: breaking down the scenario in to distinct smaller segments, then applying the stealth system at the various key points, much like MGuy described in the previous example. The major difference is the goals (both players and GM) and the particular dramatic questions at hand. There are more moving parts, but not as convoluted as it might seem. It's not too much different than dropping a couple of cleaning staff in to the Thief scenario.

As for the initial checks, it's 8 rolls (10 if you don't assume the orcs "take 10"), not 96 (or even 12). [note: orcs can "take 10" initially because at this point they're simply roving terrain features; and from the player perspective, only exist in quantum at this point). 4 players each rolling 2 dice to establish initial conditions isn't arduous; it's called playing the game at it's basest expectations - it takes 30 seconds, if you include the time it takes for people to put down their sodas and wipe the Cheetos dust off their fingers.

Furthermore, if "obliviously passing each other like ships in the night" is ever a consideration as a viable output, then that GM has failed Encounter Design on a conceptual level; Conservation of Detail is barely even the tip of it. Anyone who thinks that is ever a relevant, or even valid, consideration has mistakenly adopted the false premise that NPCs have agency. NPCs/creatures are nothing more than mobile terrain features following a script (sidenote: whether or not the GM decides to improv [i.e., write the script on the spot as you go], or has contingencies programmed in to that script [which may or may not be improv'd], doesn't change anything about that baseline observation). Having a stationary/static thing that the PCs might miss is one thing (e.g., trapped treasure in a secret chest, or even a Closet Troll™ behind a particular corner); but once you decide to program mobility/dynamism in to it, it had better be for good reason.

What questions would one have to answer stealth wise for trailing someone and noticing and escaping from a person who is tailing them?

I'm reminded of THIS article. It would take some work, but I can see layering the stealth mini-game over top of something like this (especially with how you described the breakdown for the Thief and Guard).
Of course, I'm focusing more on the process than the actual specifics of the example.

[deaddmwalking]

Furthermore, if "obliviously passing each other like ships in the night" is ever a consideration as a viable output, then that GM has failed Encounter Design on a conceptual level;

I'd like to disagree with this. If players are to have agency, there has to be other things that they could be doing. Even if the players are involved in a particular quest or mission, the world demands the presence of things that they're not actively involved with. While missing an encounter with orcs may seem like a waste at the time, it still encourages expanding the world in a meaningful way. The PCs can still interact with the existence of the orcs, even if they don't directly encounter them. Once they've passed 'like ships in the night', the players may find other signs of them - like finding a campsite that looks like it was used the previous day by a band of 30+ orcs.

That can raise tension and it plants a seed. The GM can call back to the orcs that were obviously in the area, and rather than feeling contrived, it will feel like it was appropriate foreshadowing. If the PCs knew the orcs existed, but did nothing, then it is appropriate when the orcs assault a village the PCs care about or some other way interact with the PCs in a way that creates personal stakes.

The PCs don't have to interact with every feature in the world to make having it important - having things that they choose not to interact with is what makes their choices meaningful.

[ACOS]

Furthermore, if "obliviously passing each other like ships in the night" is ever a consideration as a viable output, then that GM has failed Encounter Design on a conceptual level;

I'd like to disagree with this. If players are to have agency, there has to be other things that they could be doing. Even if the players are involved in a particular quest or mission, the world demands the presence of things that they're not actively involved with. While missing an encounter with orcs may seem like a waste at the time, it still encourages expanding the world in a meaningful way. The PCs can still interact with the existence of the orcs, even if they don't directly encounter them. Once they've passed 'like ships in the night', the players may find other signs of them - like finding a campsite that looks like it was used the previous day by a band of 30+ orcs.

That can raise tension and it plants a seed. The GM can call back to the orcs that were obviously in the area, and rather than feeling contrived, it will feel like it was appropriate foreshadowing. If the PCs knew the orcs existed, but did nothing, then it is appropriate when the orcs assault a village the PCs care about or some other way interact with the PCs in a way that creates personal stakes.

The PCs don't have to interact with every feature in the world to make having it important - having things that they choose not to interact with is what makes their choices meaningful.

I fully agree with every word you said here.

As I think on this, it occurs to me that it's possible that we might just be arguing at cross purposes on this particular issue.
My contention is that most of these things as you have described them are simply narrative details. As for the prospective encounter itself ... it's up to the GM to decide what criterion he wants to use to determine if/when/how to introduce the potential encounter; whatever boxes need to be checked, that's fine (from both sides of the screen, I'm sure). But further to that point, whether or not that actual scene comes in to fruition should be a matter of choices made on the part of the PCs/players; however, the way the scenario is described above, it seems to come off as if the NPCs are assumed to actually have some kind of agency - which they strictly don't.

And part and parcel to that point was I felt that part of Frank's analysis was just a bit melodramatic in its characterization.



[note: it's entirely possible that I've completely misunderstood something in the presentation of the above scenario; if that's the case, I'll gladly eat crow and reconsider]

[MGuy]

I think the encounter going by without either party ever knowing the other exists is practically a waste of time but because of the way I would run the encounter (probably in the way ACOS has pretty much described) it could happen but only in that instance that both parties start out making efforts to stealth prior having the opportunity to encounter each other and somehow the players roll very low on perception while sufficiently high on stealth. This would need a waste of time but it is a possible, if unlikely, output of the d20 rolls I would use to handle the forest in encounter. If I were to want to spend more time making a more more robust stealth game I would eliminate the possibility.

[ACOS]

Fair enough.
Call me a garden variety train conductor, but here's my take:
Once the boxes have been checked (via hooks, bread crumbs, etc.) and the 2 paths are set in motion (via a series of player choices/decisions), they will cross in some fashion. (provided, of course, the players/PCs seemed to care anything about it in the first place. and that's assuming I didn't set it up simply as a "'wandering' monster" scenario, for whatever reason)

but that's just me.

[Whipstitch]

Yeah, see, by my perspective the possibility of wandering monsters and fantastic environments precludes the whole conversation, frankly. Hex crawling and random encounters are too retro for some people but I for one still appreciate that sort of thing and I have long felt that they'd be way more attractive tools if there was truly a proper scouting minigame in place that reflected player skills and didn't boil down to the DM declaring which night you find an owlbear in your bedroll. I mean, it's D&D and Pathfinder is literally named after a bunch of guys who just wander around ruins poking things with sticks and looting anything that doesn't blow up in their faces. I wouldn't base an entire campaign around "We need volunteers to wander around looking out for super predators" very often but it'd be a perfectly respectable side quest option for a sandbox campaign if D&D's spotting and fleeing rules weren't so full of tears and failure.

[JonSetanta]

After reading every post in this thread, I propose the following...

Stages of Stealth
A skill contest lies between each stage.

1. Hidden: No check is needed until the hider is within 60 feet of a potential spotter. No check can be made to advance beyond this stage unless the hider is blatantly in the open (flying, running) or takes action besides stealth. Accidental stealth can occur if beyond 60 feet between different units and either Concealment or Cover is used for either side (hider or spotter). If no Concealment or Cover is involved and no one is actively stealthing, skip to Detected.
2. Detected: The spotter is aware of the hider but can't target them. They can however move closer to advance to the third stage skill check. The hider must move locations to different Concealment or Cover or they are automatically moved to Located.
3. Located: The spotter can now target the hider and the stealth game turns to combat. For a hider to regress to Detected once more requires yet again different Concealment or Cover and a new stealth skill check.

[Username17]

Iterative Probability also demands TPKs. If you add to that the idea that rolling lots of dice is a pain in the ass .... now we're back at square one of why bother with a RNG to begin with.

None of that is true. Iterative probability makes middling results more likely. Things are more likely to split 2-1 than to split 3-0 unless one of the options has a fifty point lead. This doesn't mean iterative probability makes you lose, it means that iterative probability makes you lose if that is the only possibility other than winning every round. But if you win by winning a majority of the rounds, iterative probability protects you.

Consider a card tournament. I played in a Magic draft last night, where I won. I drafted a Dimir deck that was absurdly the best deck in the room. Not only did I open 3 decent Dimir rares, but people passed me Quasiduplicate and Ritual of Soot. All of my rounds went 2-1, but because each match was a best 2 out of 3 I won all of rounds and ended the tournament with a "perfect" record. But if we'd been playing single elimination in best-of-one, I might easily have been eliminated game two. Having the best deck meant I probably had about a 60% chance of winning each game - but my chance of winning each match was considerably higher.

Dungeons & Dragons combat gives player characters a very high probability of not getting TPKed despite having only modest bonuses over team monster. The players have a slightly better AC, hit slightly harder on each hit, have slightly more hit points, have slightly better healing, and so on. But in a five or six round combat with a shit tonne of die rolls, iterative probability pushes all those to overall middling results. And with overall middling the results, the player characters emerge bloodied but victorious. And that's why people get upset about actual Save or Die effects in D&D, because unlike swinging swords for hit point damage at each other, Save or Dies really do work the other way - middling results is that at some point you turn to fucking stone and the game ends in a depressing anti-climax.

If Stealth is a "roll until you fail" situation, then iterative probability means that you will fail and stealth is useless. If Stealth is a "roll a bunch of dice and succeed if you get middling results" situation, then iterative probability works in your favor.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

How about stealth using whatever legwork system you've got for the game?

Or more abstraction on how things lead up to the grid/tabletop battle. Stealth allows you to reposition your dude, reposition their dude, move some terrain if it's something like a huge jungle where the exact specific location isn't important.

[tussock]

1st edition D&D type encounter start rules provide everything you need to game it.

You check each team to see if it's surprised. Bigger teams have more ears but also make more noise, which cancels out. If your scout is stealthy, their team is surprised more often. If your scout is hyper-aware, your team is surprised less often.

And because 2 binary rolls gives 4 outcomes, it's roughly all you need.

If neither are surprised it's a chase from a distance on the way in.
If the guard surprises you, you're caught red handed at the case.
If both are surprised it's oops, bumping into each other on the way out.
If you surprise the guard, you bypass them and steal the gems, or at least KO from behind.

If you want the 5th outcome of the alerts going off but the search is still on, then you can add to the "chase" outcome with a further check of some kind.

To get something like that out of core 3e rules playing on a grid, note that the margin of failure on an opposed Hide/MS check is the distance in 10s of feet you can pass your opponents without being spotted. Fail by 1, you're spotted at 10'. Fail by 10, you're spotted at 100', but if you never get within 100' it's all good.

Have the active team roll Spot vs Hide, passive team Listen vs MS, and that gives you two distances where each team becomes aware of the other. Attack from outside their awareness and you earn a surprise round, but can sneak up as close as you dare first, or just sneak away without combat.

If everyone rolls, your encounters are all at long range. With one roll or scout vs lookout, it's more variable.

[Username17]

How about stealth using whatever legwork system you've got for the game?

Why don't we just use whatever social system we're using for the game?

Look, Legwork systems are hard. Stealth systems are hard. Social systems are hard. True fact: only one edition of D&D even had a legwork system and it was a dumpster fire.

Tactical combat minigames are also pretty hard, but it turns out that Gygax and Arneson hacked out a mostly functional one in the 1970s and we've been mostly just tweaking it around the edges for the last forty years for all RPGs made since then.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

The thing I memorised from Anatomy of Failed Design: Skill Challenges was how they were so close to at least being mediocre but usable and not being a dumpster fire, and that part of why you can tell 4e was poorly designed was that none of the iterations implemented any obvious fix to make the system actually meet its nominal design goals.